There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.

Depression runs in my family on both sides, and I have to be wary.

I’m super self-critical, which I think is good, because then I get exactly what I want. I’m critical of other people, too – I try not to be, though.

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names.

It is a great shock at the age of five or six to find that in a world of Gary Coopers you are the Indian.

I’m always cast in these strange men… that’s not me, really.

It’s like a jar of salad dressing sitting on a shelf… most of the seasoning settles to the bottom of the bottle. But when you shake that bottle up, all the ingredients mix together and then the dressing can add flavor to a salad. In the same way, we can stir ourselves up and regain the reverence, respect and awe we once had for the Lord.

I approach love differently now that I know it’s hard for it to work out.

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

People tried to change my concept of what music is. That music is work, but it’s not like that.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.

Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.

Conflict cannot survive without your participation.

When I was in my teens I had issues with OCD.

Even with all the advantages of retrospect, and a lot of witnesses dead and gone, you can’t make your life look as if you intended it or you were consistent. All you can show is how you dealt with various hands.

Self-talk, for me, has been the biggest thing in my life. A lot of us have a dialogue that is crap. It’s a crappy dialogue. We live in a world right now that is very external. Everything is very on the surface. Superficial. Everything. And what we’re telling ourselves is what we see on TV.

Silence is a source of great strength.

‚Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

Observe all men, thyself most.

Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops.

Although I’m only fourteen, I know quite well what I want. I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child. I feel quite independent of anyone.

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

The mind of America is seized by a fatal dry rot – and it’s only a question of time before all that the mind controls will run amuck in a frenzy of stupid, impotent fear.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

I have an expression I use as I’ve gone around the world through my career: ‚You never tell another man or woman what’s in their interest. They know their interest better than you know their interest.‘

I wanted to write when I was young, but people said it was impossible. Then my parents locked me in a mental institution – they said I was crazy and would never make a living from writing.

Every spoken word arouses our self-will.

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn’t a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

People who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think.

Sometimes, I want to talk on a song and be angry, because I am angry. Then there’s always a part of me that remembers that this record lives past my being angry, and so do I really want to be angry about that? Is that feeling going to have longevity?

O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

My father wasn’t around when I was a kid, and I used to always say, ‚Why me? Why don’t I have a father? Why isn’t he around? Why did he leave my mother?‘ But as I got older I looked deeper and thought, ‚I don’t know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?‘

If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.

Listening has importance only when one is not projecting one’s own desires through which one listens.

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

There are certain things that bother me and certain things that don’t. Personal attacks on me? I think I’m just so used to it.

It’s human nature to blame someone else for your shortcomings or upsets.

When your soul is resting, your emotions are okay, your mind is okay, and your will is at peace with God, not resisting what He’s doing.

I let the American people down.

Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.

Today I love myself as I love my god: who could charge me with a sin today? I know only sins against my god; but who knows my god?

If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.

We will always tend to fulfill our own expectation of ourselves.

Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.

Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you’re the funniest person you’ve ever heard of.

What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity.

I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf. I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you get so sore at yourself you forget to hate your enemies.

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.

All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.

I’m the only person of distinction who has ever had a depression named for him.

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left?

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.